Tate
| industry = Food processing | key_people = Gerry Murphy, Chairman Nick Hampton, CEO | products = Starches Splenda Alcohol Citric acid High fructose corn syrup | revenue = £2,710 million (2018) | operating_income = £290 million (2018) | net_income = £265 million (2018) | num_employees = 4,189 (2018) | foundation = Merger of Henry Tate & Sons and Abram Lyle & Sons in 1921 | location = London, England, UK | homepage = }} Tate & Lyle PLC is a British-headquartered, global supplier of food and beverage ingredients to industrial markets. It was originally a sugar refining business, but from the 1970s began to diversify, eventually divesting its sugar business in 2012. It specialises in turning raw materials such as corn, tapioca, and oats into ingredients that add taste, texture, and nutrients to food and beverages. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. Nick Hampton became CEO on 1 April 2018, replacing Javed Ahmed, who stepped down from this role and from the board, and retired from the company. History Sugar refining , London]] The company was formed in 1921 from a merger of two rival sugar refiners: Henry Tate & Sons and Abram Lyle & Sons. Henry Tate established his business in 1859 in Liverpool, later expanding to Silvertown in East London. He used his industrial fortune to found the Tate Institute in Silvertown in 1887 and the Tate Gallery in Pimlico, Central London in 1897. He endowed the gallery with his own collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings.The River Thames from Hampton Court to the Millennium Dome (1999) Abram Lyle, a cooper and shipowner, acquired an interest in a sugar refinery in 1865 in Greenock and then at Plaistow Wharf, West Silvertown, London. The two companies had large factories nearby each other – Henry Tate in Silvertown and Abram Lyle at Plaistow Wharf – so prompting the merger. Prior to the merger, which occurred after they had died, the two men were bitter business rivals, although they had never met in person. In 1949, the Company introduced its "Mr Cube" brand, as part of a marketing campaign to help it fight a proposed nationalisation by the Labour government. Diversification From 1973, British membership of the European Economic Community threatened Tate & Lyle's core business, with quotas imposed from Brussels favouring domestic sugar beet producers over imported cane refiners such as Tate & Lyle. As a result, under the leadership of Saxon Tate (a direct descendent of Henry Tate), the company began to diversify into related fields of commodity trading, transport and engineering, and in 1976, it acquired competing cane sugar refiner Manbré & Garton. In 1976, the Company acquired a 33% stake (increased to 63% in 1988) in Amylum, a European starch-based manufacturing business. The Liverpool sugar plant closed in 1981 and the Greenock plant closed in 1997. In 1988, Tate & Lyle acquired a 90% stake in A. E. Staley, a US corn processing business. In 1998 it brought Haarmann & Reimer, a citric acid producer. In 2000 it acquired the remaining minorities of Amylum and A. E. Staley. In 2004, it established a joint venture with DuPont to manufacture a renewable 1,3-Propanediol that can be used to make Sorona (a substitute for nylon). This was its first major foray into bio-materials. In 2005, DuPont Tate & Lyle BioProducts was created as a joint venture between DuPont and Tate & Lyle. In 2006, it acquired Hycail, a small Dutch business, giving the company intellectual property and a pilot plant to manufacture Polylactic acid (PLA), another bio-plastic. In October 2007, five European starch and alcohol plants, previously part of the European starch division knowns as Amylum group, were sold to Syral, a subsidiary of French sugar company Tereos. Syral closed its Greenwich Peninsula plant in London in September 2009, and it was subsequently demolished. , London]] In February 2008, it was announced that Tate & Lyle granulated white cane sugar would be accredited as a Fairtrade product, with all the company's other retail products to follow in 2009. In April 2009, the United States International Trade Commission affirmed a ruling that Chinese manufacturers can make copycat versions of its Splenda product. Disposal of sugar refining business In July 2010 the company announced the sale of its sugar refining business, including rights to use the Tate & Lyle brand name and Lyle's Golden Syrup, to American Sugar Refining for £211 million. The sale included the Plaistow Wharf and Silvertown plants.Tate & Lyle sells sugar arm to American Sugar Refining BBC News, 1 July 2010 In popular culture In 2012, HarperCollins published The Sugar Girls, a work of narrative non-fiction based on the true stories of women who worked at Tate & Lyle's two factories in the East End of London from the 1940s to the 1960s. Operations The company is organised as follows: * Food and Beverage Solutions ** Sweeteners, such as Splenda sucralose and crystalline fructose ** Texturants, such as starch and gums ** Wellness ingredients, such as dietary fibres * Primary Products, such as high fructose corn syrup and acidulants See also * A. E. Staley – US owned subsidiary * Splenda – sucralose, a key product for the group * Redpath Sugar, once owned by T&L; sold in 2010 as part of package deal to ASR References Further reading * – A source for information concerning T&L's union-busting activities in the early 1990s in Decatur, Illinois * Sugar and All That... A History of TATE & LYLE by Antony Hugill (Gentry Books, 1978) * Tate & Lyle PLC and Ferruzzi Finanziaria SpA and S & W Berisford PLC, 1987 Competition Commission report * Tate & Lyle PLC and British Sugar plc, 1991 Competition Commission report * External links * Tate & Lyle corporate website * * The history of sugar in Liverpool and the effects of the closure of the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery * The house of William Park Lyle, son of Abram Lyle, has had a multi million makeover * [http://www.thesugargirls.com/ The Sugar Girls official website] * Category:Tate & Lyle Category:British Royal Warrant holders Category:Food manufacturers of the United Kingdom Category:Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange Category:Food processing in London Category:British brands Category:Sugar companies Category:Starch companies Category:Port of London Category:Industry on the River Thames Category:Companies based in Liverpool Category:1921 establishments in England Category:British companies established in 1921 Category:Manufacturing companies established in 1921 Category:Food and drink companies established in 1921 Category:Companies formed by merger Category:Sugar industry in the United Kingdom Category:Companies based in the City of Westminster